Tom Cruise's Stacee Jaxx will take his place in the Hollywood music pantheon next month. See other rock-star performances by Kristen Stewart, Jamie Foxx, and Val Kilmer

Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx

Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx

Nearly 30 years ago, Tom Cruise stripped down to his tighty-whities and rocked out to Bob Seger in Risky Business. Next month, Cruise returns to that era—in a slightly more dignified costume—as hair-metal god Stacee Jaxx in the film adaptation of Rock of Ages. "I will light this place on fire," the heavily tatted Jaxx boasts in the film's trailer, before he belts out Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive." And costar Malin Akerman predicts audiences are going to be blown away by Cruise's power ballads. He can "sing like an opera singer," she said in a recent interview. "He's Superman to me. He can do anything he sets his mind to."

Classic Movie Rock Gods and Goddesses

Classic Movie Rock Gods and Goddesses

"You see Joan Jett and you just think badass, intimidating, hard—and she's so not like that," Kristen Stewart said in 2010 after playing the rock goddess in The Runaways. "She's really thoughtful—almost too thoughtful." And after watching the Twilight star portray her on-screen, Jett repaid the compliment. "I found us to be really, scarily similar, just in our physicality, the way we move through space," Jett told Interview. "When we were hanging out together on set, it was like I had a mirror image. Even just sitting around, we'd do the same thing at the same time. It was just great—and it wasn't creepy. It was wonderfully special."